Marine Pollution Bulletin 153 (2020) 110961

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Marine Pollution Bulletin

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul

Mysterious oil spill in the Atlantic Ocean threatens marine biodiversity and T
local people in Brazil
⁎
Rafael Almeida Magrisa, , Tommaso Giarrizzob
a
Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, Ministry of Environment, Brasilia DF 70.670-350, Brazil
b
Núcleo de Ecologia Aquática e Pesca da Amazônia (NEAP), Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, PA 66040-170, Brazil

A B S T R A C T

This study provides the first preliminary assessment of the potential impact from the recent oil spill in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Using information on the
occurrence of oil patches along the Brazilian coast, we quantified potential exposure of marine coastal habitats (estuaries, mangroves, beaches, seagrass meadows,
tidal flats, and coral reefs) to oil-related disturbances. We also evaluated which threatened species in the coastal zone may have been impacted and the magnitude of
the impacts on socioeconomic activities (i.e. artisanal fisheries and local tourism). Estuaries, mangroves, and seagrass meadows had the highest footprint among the
habitats assessed. A total of 27 threatened coastal species occur within the area impacted by the oil residue. Approximately 870,000 people, employed in both
artisanal fisheries and local tourism, appear to have been affected by the oil spill. We pinpointed priority areas for monitoring of contamination and accumulation in
marine biota.

Oil spills in the world's ocean have often been in the headlines, and
the most recent case is the mysterious appearance of crude oil in the
waters off northeastern and southeastern Brazil (Escobar, 2019). Al-
though the worldwide frequency of the accidental discharge of oil-re-
lated pollutants has decreased significantly over time (Burgherr, 2007),
Brazil is one of the countries most vulnerable to the ecological and
socio-economic impacts of pollution by crude oil in marine environ-
ments. The country has undergone a major increase in shipping traffic
in recent years (Tournadre, 2014), which exerts growing pressure on
sensitive areas adjacent to maritime transport routes. This expansion in
shipping traffic has at least partly contributed to the large number of
accidents involving oil tankers recorded over the past 20 years (Musk,
2012). Growing global demand for oil and gas is also driving the ad-
vance of exploration and production operations into coastal and off-
shore areas of the country (Harfoot et al., 2018).
Since late August 2019, nearly 400 localities spanning approxi-
mately 3000 km of the northern and southeastern Brazilian coast have
been exposed to hundreds of tons of crude oil and the associated phy-
sical and chemical disturbance. Four months on, although the geo-
graphical limits of the affected area are known, there are concerns that
these toxic chemicals may have a severe impact on important areas for
the conservation of the marine biodiversity of the region, including the
Abrolhos National Park, which protects the largest coral reef complex in
the South Atlantic Ocean. Whilst the oil spill source goes undetected,
the risks of serious loss of biodiversity and environmental services in-
crease progressively as the oil released at sea comes ashore in coastal
ecosystems. Driven by subsequent disturbances (e.g., storms, human
activities), crude oil will possibly be reinjected into the water column,
which could result in recurring contamination over time.
In addition to initial insights into the possible ecological and so-
cioeconomic effects, we provide the first information on the biodi-
versity (habitats and threatened species) and ecosystem services (small-
scale fisheries and tourism) affected by this unreported spill discharge.
By taking the most conservative approach to estimating ongoing im-
pact, we assessed the overlap of detected oil patches reported by the
environmental national agency in Brazil (IBAMA, 2019) as well as their
immediate vicinity (a buffer of 1 km around each detected location)
with maps of distribution of marine coastal habitats [i.e. estuaries
(MapBiomas, 2019); mangroves (Giri et al., 2011; Magris and Barreto,
2010); seagrass meadows (Copertino et al., 2016); beaches
(MapBiomas, 2019); tidal flats (Murray et al., 2019); and coral reefs
(Magris et al., 2017). These key marine habitats are all known to have
suffered impacts from exposure to crude oil contaminants (Burns et al.,
1993; Chung et al., 2004; de la Huz et al., 2005; Guzman and Holst,
1993; Ite et al., 2013; Macinnis-Ng and Ralph, 2003).
We found that all the marine coastal habitats assessed in the present
study have already been exposed to the oil residue to a varying, but as
yet undetermined extent within the different areas, as follows: estuaries
(4929.74 km2), mangroves (489.83 km2), seagrass meadows
(324.77 km2), beaches (185.3 km2), tidal flats (63.64 km2), and both
intertidal (45.95 km2), and subtidal coral reefs (9.69 km2) (Fig. 1). The
differences in the possible extent of the exposures of different habitats

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Rafael.magris@icmbio.gov.br (R.A. Magris).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.110961
Received 19 December 2019; Received in revised form 3 February 2020; Accepted 4 February 2020
Available online 15 February 2020
0025-326X/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
R.A. Magris and T. Giarrizzo Marine Pollution Bulletin 153 (2020) 110961

Fig. 1. Map of the preliminary findings on the extent of the impact of the oil spill on marine coastal habitats between August and December 2019. Potential impacts
were estimated as the overlap between each marine coastal habitat (estuaries, mangroves, seagrass meadows, beaches, tidal flats, and subtidal and intertidal coral
reefs) and the occurrence of oil patches. The inserts on the right (A-D) show a close-up view of each marine coastal habitat in distinct areas of impact, shown in the
dashed squares in the principal map, to the left, which also shows areas of particular concern for assessing current impacts in red. The areas shaded red represent a
high relative density of all the potentially impacted marine coastal habitats that were exposed to oil residues. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this
figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

to oil pollution were related to the natural distribution of these habitats,
as well as to the differences in the movements of pollutants. We have
identified three geographic areas of particular concern for further in-
vestigation into the ecological impacts of the oil spill event, which
demand the implementation of monitoring effort that will permit for
causal inferences with an appropriate level of confidence (Fig. 1, on the
left): (i) marine coastal habitats on the Northeastern coast between the
cities of Natal and Maceio; (ii) habitats in and around the city of Sal-
vador, and (iii) habitats on the Abrolhos Bank and in southern Bahia.
The region potentially impacted thus far has the highest species rich-
ness and local endemism of intertidal and subtidal reef fish and corals
found anywhere on the Brazilian coast (Andrades et al., 2018; Leão
et al., 2019; Pinheiro et al., 2018).
We also counted the number of coastal (restricted to depths lower
than 100 m) threatened species (ICMBio, 2018) that overlapped with
areas that were exposed to crude oil residue. We found that at least 27
species can be especially vulnerable to the oil-related impacts, in-
cluding 11 elasmobranchs (e.g. Carcharhinus perezi, Mobula thurstoni,
Pristis pristis), 10 bony fishes (e.g. Epinephelus itajara, Hippocampus reidi,
Megalops atlanticus), 5 invertebrates (e.g. Mussismilia harttii, Luidia se-
negalensis, Eustrombus goliath), and 2 mammals (Sotalia guianensis, Tri-
chechus manatus) (Table 1).
The mysterious oil slicks that continue to wash ashore will likely
have significant and long-lasting socioeconomic impacts, in particular
for the local tourism and small-scale fisheries. The tourism industry of
the Brazilian Northeast, which employs a workforce of 365,657 in-
dividuals (IPEA, 2019), is highly dependent on the region's tropical
beaches, while its 503,692 artisanal fishermen (Neto, 2017) may also
be seriously affected.
We would recommend further, more systematic evaluation and
monitoring to guarantee a more conclusive understanding of the effects
of exposure to crude oil residues on the different marine habitats and
the livelihoods of the coastal populations of eastern Brazil, and to in-
crease awareness of the consequences of the recent oil spill. In parti-
cular, future assessments should focus on the many important en-
vironmental processes that affect the transport and fate of contaminants
in coastal waters, in order to better elucidate the ecological impacts, in
particular, the cumulative effects of crude oil on species, its accumu-
lation in the biota, and associated biogeochemical processes. We also
believe that future assessments involving a diverse array of stake-
holders and varying levels of social and political governance will yield
more precise estimates of how human well-being is affected by this
contamination. A better understanding of the fine details of the impact
and the potential for the mitigation of its effects should hopefully
contribute to an increased level of preparedness for any future oil spill
on the Brazilian coast.

2
R.A. Magris and T. Giarrizzo
Table 1
List of the threatened coastal species that may be most affected by
the oil spill event of 2019.
Taxonomic group Threatened species
Elasmobranchs Carcharhinus perezi
Carcharhinus porosus
Mobula hypostoma
Mobula tarapacana
Mobula thurstoni
Myliobatis freminvillii
Pristis pectinata
Pristis pristis
Rhinobatos lentiginosus
Sphyrna tiburo
Sphyrna tudes
Teleosts Elacatinus figaro
Epinephelus itajara
Hippocampus reidi
Lutjanus cyanopterus
Megalops atlanticus
Mycteroperca bonaci
Scarus trispinosus
Scarus zelindae
Sparisoma axillare
Sparisoma frondosum
Invertebrates Eustrombus goliath
Mussismilia braziliensis
Mussismilia harttii
Luidia senegalensis
Oreaster reticulatus
Mammals Sotalia guianensis
Trichechus manatus
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Rafael Almeida Magris:Conceptualization, Writing - review &
editing, Supervision, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing - ori-
ginal draft.Tommaso Giarrizzo:Conceptualization, Writing - review
& editing, Data curation.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
T.G. was funded by a productivity grant from CNPq (# 311078/
2019-2).
Marine Pollution Bulletin 153 (2020) 110961
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